Chapter 5

Murrt (SecUnit) and Amena escape the facility in EVAC suits and are captured by a ship in space—which Murrt recognizes as ART, the research vessel she previously worked with. Upon boarding, Murrt discovers the ship is now controlled by hostile augmented humanoids who claim to have deleted ART's core system, and she fights them off while protecting Amena and two corporate survivors named Eletra and Ras.

SecUnit and Amena launch from the dying facility toward the baseship using EVAC suits, but ART's ship appears and captures them with a tractor beam, pulling them aboard before jumping toward a wormhole. Inside ART's airlock, SecUnit realizes the ship is real and not a memory malfunction, then removes her suit and releases her drones to scout. She encounters two tall, gray-skinned augmented humanoids (Target One and Target Two) in the crew lounge who are interrogating Amena and two captured Barish-Estranza corporate employees (Eletra and Ras) about a weapon. The targets claim they have deleted ART's bot pilot system. SecUnit attacks Target One to silence it, destroys the hostile drones with hacked commands, and brutally kills both targets using their own weapons and the environment. A third target (Target Three) appears on the bridge and attempts a comm announcement before SecUnit's drones kill it and the first target. Amena insists they flee with Eletra and Ras, and SecUnit reluctantly follows them into the corridors after destroying another waiting drone.